Blood Magic
by Fallen Ark Angel
Summary: Bickslow's kind of odd. And kind of off. And definitely weird. But...just how weird is he? - One-shot.


"I've noticed something about you."

"About me?"

"About you."

It was a typical day spent around Bickslow's apartment, staggered between his intense training sessions with the Thunder Legion and Lisanna's not so intense goofing around with Natsu and Happy that this conversation began.

The seith was seated on the floor of his living room, very busy sorting through the jewels Lisanna had pulled in from working a shift or two up at the bar and the extra he had after taking into account rent and the like. He and Lisanna were saving up for a new movie lacrima since the boss (Laxus) refused to loan them his. His new one. Because they broke his last one. He said they were just lucky he didn't make them reimburse him. Lisanna argued he was lucky she didn't tell Mirajane he was talking to her that way. Mirajane, who apparently was just in the other room of Laxus' apartment, came out to inform her she did know, about the whole blackmailing Laxus into doing stuff too under threat of telling on him to the she-devil, and that it had to stop. Bickslow just snickered and beamed brightly, tongue rolling out of his mouth as he assured both Mirajane and Laxus that he and Lisanna owning a movie lacrima, together, would not only be a big step in their relationship, but also in them learning responsibility.

As he sat there, however, knowing they had more than enough money, it was taking a lot out of him not to pocket half of it, lie to the naive Lisanna, and just buy some smokes or something.

It was as he was contemplating this that, from the couch, where she had been appearing to read a magazine, Lisanna spoke and made him freeze.

Had his innocent little Lisanna learned just how much of a devious (albeit petty) thief he could be?

Not even glancing over his shoulder, he knew no as he pocketed half the earnings and she didn't even get up to stop him.

"Of course you did, Lissy," he remarked, not glancing behind himself for even a second. "You're much more observant than me. A lot more up top, yeah?" He tapped a finger against his unmasked skull. "So much more."

"W-Well, I don't know about that." Ever the bashful one, he still didn't need to turn to know that there was heat reddening her cheeks. "It's only taken me forever to notice it, after all."

"But notice it you did."

"Maybe."

"What is it then?" From the pocket that wasn't housing some of his own jewels and some that definitely should be going into the jar on his counter (which he more than borrowed from as well, when she wasn't around), the man pulled his nearly empty packet of smokes. "Lisanna?"

But she was silent for a moment, perhaps thinking of just how to phase what was coming next, maybe even chickening out of saying it. He had the rolled paper dangling from his lips, still fishing around on the living room floor for a lighter, when she spoke again.

"Your eye magic," she began softly, "it doesn't control your babies. Does it?"

She caught him off guard with that one, he'd give her that.

Lighter in one hand, he was slow about bringing it up to his face. Staring into the flame as he lit the butt of his cigarette, he asked around it, "What makes you say that?"

"I dunno. You're the one that says I'm observant."

"I say that I'd kill myself for the boss too," he agreed after a puff of his smoke. "But you ain't ever seen me step in front of a bullet for the man."

"I've never seen an opportunity for you to."

The man's babies that she was speaking about, his wooden dolls, were inactive at the moment, all resting in a pile on the coffee table, as they had been since Lisanna showed up that morning.

"He mutes his dolls for you?" Freed had asked in shock, a few months ago, when she broached the subject with him up at the bar. "Frequently?"

"Well aren't you a lucky ducky," Evergreen replied, words dripping in contempt or sarcasm (a mixture?) when she went to her for answers one night when the woman stayed over with Elfman in the Strauss house. "Getting treated so special."

"Don't let it go to your head," had been what Freed instructed in closing with a bit of a nod. "Lisanna."

"Don't fuck him up," was Evergreen's frequent warning, but especially that morning. "Worse than he already is."

Sitting there then, Lisanna's eyes fell on them and Bickslow found his shifting that way as well.

"You're funny, Lissy." But his tone was dry and she didn't feel so. "You know that?"

"If it's something...personal, then… I just..."

"What makes you say that? Lisanna?" Finally, cigarette lit, he glanced back at her in the darkness of his apartment, only the lamp beside the couch on as he always covered his windows with heavy blankets. "That I don't control my dolls?"

"I never said you didn't control your dolls."

"Then what did you say?"

She'd dropped her magazine then, down to her stomach. "I said that they're not controlled by your eyes." A hand came up to her mouth and, as if nervous, she bit at her thumbnail. "Or at least not the same way your usual magic is."

Bickslow's gaze felt heavy, but the look on his face felt as light as always.

"Again, Lissy, I ask," came his intermingled with smoke words, "what makes you say that?"

The man had always had a hold over her. Always.

Not in a...deviant way. Or magical. Just...in a certain way.

"He reminds me a lot of Natsu," she confided in Mirajane on occasion. "He's so bubbly and happy and fun and just...it's everything I've always wanted."

"He reminds me nothing of Natsu," she told Lucy one day, when they had somehow been ditched by Happy and the Salamander in favor of training and found themselves actually having a real conversation for once. "He's dark and contemplative and...he has a lot going on."

"Bickslow?" Mirajane asked, knowing the man quite well, she felt, having been dating his idol for the past year. "He's all these things?"

"B-Bickslow?" Lucy stumbled over her words in the darkness of her apartment, as the two women sat at her table over tea. "He's that deep?"

"Yeah," she'd told both women on those separate occasions with a nod of her head. "Absolutely."

She'd meant it too. Because he was true.

When she was a little girl, all Lisanna ever thought about was how she and Natsu were going to be together. And how perfect he was. Then...then.

When she came back from Edolas and things were so different, she pretty much gave up on that. Things had changed. She'd changed. In a lot of ways, so had he. She still liked him, in some ways, and definitely was attracted to many of his traits, but…

A lot of Natsu was on the surface. Completely. Fine, you might have to dig a little, but within six months of knowing him, you know nearly everything you need to know. You begin to understand how he ticks. And that's comforting.

When you haven't even reached your late teen years.

"I just spend a lot of time around you, you know," Lisanna told Bickslow as he sat there, taking deep drags, and she only tried hard not to stare straight into his eyes, as she always felt compelled to do, when his visor was gone. "And… It just seems different. The way that you control your babies and the way that you can control others."

Shrugging a bit, he only replied, "That's hardly enough basis to go on. Your sister can turn into wayward souls and transform into her friends. What does that mean?"

"It doesn't mean anything." Her eyes fell on his then and there was just no going back. "Because those are two different magics."

"In what way?"

"In every way," she said. "She can absorb and control demons from inside of her, but when she's...transforming into others, that's another magic she learned entirely."

"Is that so," he muttered, but it hardly sounded like a question.

Still, she answered. "Of course it is, Bickslow."

"Huh."

"Because it is different, isn't it? What you do?" She was shifting on the couch some, to sit up better then. "I mean, fine, you still use your basic magic, from your eyes, to see the souls, but controlling them-"

"Your sister might be using different spells," he cut her off then, "but they're still the same base magic."

"And so it is what you do. Isn't it?" When he didn't answer, she said, "Because, I mean, fine, I'm sure your base magic is in your eyes. That's how you see souls. That's how you control others when they...when you… But it's not the same, really, is it? It's a different spell."

The drag was slow that time and, reaching up, he actually plucked the cigarette from his mouth to exhale.

"You're really something else," he breathed. "Lissy."

Taking a breath, she waited a moment. Then, "Are you denying it?"

"Why would I?" His cigarette went back up to his mouth. "Never claimed it was all one spell. Only a fool would believe it was." His grin always seemed hallow, when his tongue wasn't hanging out of his mouth. "And you're no fool. Are you? Lisanna?"

"He's dangerous, Lisanna," had been what Elfman told her when he found out that they were dating. He got real flustered about it too, she remembered, turning all red in the face. "Evergreen tells me things about him."

"He's harmless," she overhead Laxus reassuring Mirajane one night when the slayer spent the night over at their house. "For the most part."

"I can do whatever I want. I'm grown," she frequently had to remind Elfman, that first time he confronted her about dating the seith included. "And Evergreen's not so squeaky clean either, you know."

"Lisanna's free to date whoever she wants," Mirajane had sighed in agreement with her boyfriend. "And I know Bickslow's an okay person. No different than me dating you, I guess."

That's what they didn't understand though. That that was the drawl. Because she was right. He was both exactly and also nothing like Natsu in many ways. Laxus was most correct when he said that Bickslow was harmless.

Most of the time.

And it was the times that he wasn't that made it so much better than it would have been, to just be with an exact clone of Natsu, comfortable in their relationship and standing with one another. Because Bickslow could be cute. And lovable. Adorable, even, to some.

But that was what made him so dangerous.

He was a parody of himself, after all. His jokes and gags and over exaggerated persona were just mimics of what he felt internally. He played up being a creep because, on the inside, he felt like one. The mask and getup that he typically wore made him look like a big, hilarious jape. And it was. One he was playing on himself. Because he did feel like he was hidden away from the others. Distanced. Of course Bickslow was aware that most of the outspoken and vibrant personalities in Fairy Tail were also just projections from the others, that most of them were also hurt, deeply hurt, and instead of healing, instead built up caricatures of their former selves. Deep down, the majority of Fairy Tail core was made up of hardly matured children shoved into the bodies of adults and given tasks to complete for moral reward rather than any actual chances at redemption or reclamation.

The thing was though, that none of the others ever seemed to realize this. Or acknowledge it. It had been going on since Bickslow had found himself rescued from the life of a pickpocket out on the streets by Master Makarov and his grandson. The men all drunk and boasted of their accomplishments and the women hung around them or outwardly detested them, but with little to no desire to see their behaviors change.

It was only natural for the younger generation to find solace in the same things.

Masks.

They all wore masks.

But unlike the men who got drunk and the women who wasted their time fretting over them, they fond different things to shield themselves with.

Some were loud. Boisterous. Argued. Fought. It was all an establishment of dominance they'd never had before, most of the wayward children that found their way into the hall in those few years. Their guidance and revered leader was a drunk old man who hid his pain of losing his son and the slow loss of his grandson in just bring in more and more kids that, to be frank, only clogged up the already flourishing guildhall more than they brought anything back to it at the time. There was no one there to look out for them. You either sank or swam. And no fairy swims without a bit of flair.

Erza wore armor, Natsu fought anyone who came close to him. Jet and Droy obsessed to the point of annoyance over Levy while Cana from a young age drunk herself into nothing. Mirajane lashed out at anything that moved and Gray played up his icy persona by trying his hardest to be a loner while, really, just craving the same attention they all did.

Older than the others, Bickslow observed this from afar, it hardly lost on him what was taking place. How they were all falling into place, actually. None of them were their real selves and probably, honestly, couldn't recall well any longer what they were before whatever trauma it was that brought them to the Fairy Tail.

But the problem with this was that, at his heart, Bickslow was weird. He was odd. He was creepy and freaky and just an overall eccentric guy. An oddball. Misfit. Even before he shaved his head into his stylized way or would start using his already off putting aura to good use, the other children already felt as if he was weird. He talked to these living objects that he would animate and, outside of the despondent Laxus and the other two followers he'd amassed, they were all he talked to.

None of the kids in Fairy Tail really had any room to bully another, but if they did, Bickslow would certainly be the easiest pick. He made no show of wishing to come off as friendly, from the beginning. As the others drenched themselves in cloaks of new personalities, Bickslow had been himself from the very beginning.

Which meant that, as the influence of the hall took over, it wasn't the darkness that he portrayed that became his mask. It wasn't a closed off attitude he gave out that was his cloak. Instead, he went out and bought a literal cloak and an actual medieval close helm, removing the sallet like portion to leave him to guard the only true part of his body that he cared for- His eyes.

"They look goofy," Freed remarked the first time he showed the getup off to his best friend.

"You look," Evergreen hissed at him in embarrassment when she saw him that way up at the hall one day, "ridiculous. Laxus is never going to hang around us now!"

But the slayer himself, when he eventually saw what the other teen was sporting, only snorted and, hardly even pulling one of his headphones away from his ears, grumbled out, "If you're gonna be it, look the part."

And boy, did Bickslow plan to.

The Thunder God Tribe had always had the inclination of angry teenagers, rebelling against the world and Makarov's establishment, even when they were hardly teens and weren't even sure if they were against the world, much less the establishment. Things were no different, when he donned his face mask and cape. When he painted his nails black. When he went back and got Evergreen to paint them for him properly because he did such a horrible job at it. He was still angry. The resentment was still there. All his life up to that point was still a shitty hand that had been dealt to him by the universe at large. None of that was changing. He was just adding a new cover over it. His own facade. Where the others chose to cover up their childish fears with bravado, he chose to blanket his bravado in juvenile antics.

It softened the blow, for a lot of people. Sure, he was still a creep. Perhaps even more of one, when he was in one of his immature moods. But therein lied the trick. What Laxus had alluded to.

Bickslow was very harmless. A punk with few directions and perhaps some skewed morals, but oh, isn't he so cute? How he cares for his dolls? And sure, he says some off the wall things, but that was no reason to distrust him, was it? Maybe be a bit leery, but nothing more.

Right?

"No," Lisanna was saying back to him, in that moment, as he sat there, cigarette dangling from his lips, his eyes not leaving her for a second. "I'm not."

"Of course not. What would I look like? Dating a fool _and_ a kid?"

"I'm not a kid."

"I was," he told her. "When I learned my magic"

"I remember," she whispered with a sharp nod of her head. "You've told me before. About your… But you just told me about how you learned to see souls. Not-"

"Souls that are still attached to their worldly counterparts are different." And his tongue went back up so he could take another drag. "I'm consuming the host as much as I am thee soul."

"The host?"

"The body," he clarified with a certainty he, in full honesty, did not have on the subject. One could master an art, after all, without ever becoming familiar with the proper techniques and nomenclature. "Whatever's holding it."

"Then when there's not one-"

"When there isn't one, it's just different."

"It's easier, right?" she asked. "because you don't have to worry about the host?"

Bickslow shrugged a bit before, with one last puff, leaning back over the coffee table to stab out his cigarette in the perpetually overflowing ashtray that sat there. "It depends."

"On what?"

There was no attempt at making his grin seem innocent then; Bickslow was clearly trying to cause her unease.

"On what," he answered as he turned back to face the couch, "I plan to do with it."

"With your babies though," she said slowly, "it's easy? Right? Since you do it so often?"

"Depends on what you consider easy, I guess," he remarked. "Do I think someone else could do so with ease? No. But I'm different. They're my life."

That hung between them for a moment or two before Lisanna asked, "What does it entail? The spell you use for them?"

"Blood. Lots of blood."

She broke then as, for some reason, what he'd said had finally eased some of the tension in the room.

"Blood?" she asked with a snicker as he only glared. "Now I know you're messing with me. Ha ha, Bickslow. Good one."

"What?" he asked with a frown. "I'm being serious."

"Sure."

"What made you think it, anyways?" he asked then as he continued to stare so heavily at her. "Lisanna? That they're two different spells?"

"Your eyes," she told him then as, gathering herself, she was able to answer. "When you possess someone's soul, they glow. But you're not possessing your babies. They still have free will. You're...binding them to objects, aren't you?"

"Yeah," he agreed, a bit shocked she'd been able to explain it so well. "With blood."

"Bickslow-"

"It's not a joke, Lisanna." And though her tone had become that way then, his still had the same steel it'd had since the beginning. "I use blood magic."

The time, the silence was heavy and brought the mood back down once more. Lisanna shifted a bit as she considered her feelings on the subject before, slowly, shaking her head.

"I don't believe you," she said simply. "No way."

"I use my soul magic to view them and then the blood to bind them," he said before holding a hand out to her. "Look how scarred the pads of my fingers are."

She refused to. She had to. Because accepting that he was using blood magic...his own blood…

"I don't like him, Lisanna," Happy informed the woman once when they sat together in the guild, his best friend across the hall choosing a job. "At all."

"I think Bickslow's great!" Natsu assured yet another as they hung around the park together, his feline companion too busy off chasing Carla to be around. "Did you see that fight we had last week? That's the best thing about him."

"He's not so bad, Happy," she'd sighed to the Exceed. "Just...something to get used to."

"I don't know if that's what makes him great, Natsu," she'd griped a bit. "For me, at least."

"Whatever makes you happy," both had told her with shrugs though they held their own opinions on the matter.

Her relationship with him was very consuming, however, and while Natsu and Happy were typically off on their own adventures, the amount of time she had to spend with them during their down time was noticeably lacking recently. And though neither had mentioned it to her, she could tell that the concept wasn't fun for them. She'd always been the one sitting around waiting, but now the the tables were a bit more fair and they didn't like their odds.

But it went back to the hold that he had over her, honestly. Sometimes Bickslow did things that she didn't agree with. At all. A lot of times, even. He was a bit of an ass and, though he hid it well, was frequently unable to handle being alone with his own thoughts. Lisanna wasn't thoroughly convinced he was as dark as he always attempted to portray himself, but at the same time, had to admit after spending some time with him that he didn't have the best of thoughts. His anger and resentment seemed to turn into sulking and self-loathing for the most part and, though he didn't pick on his guild mates much in those days, the things that he said aloud to her about them weren't always what she wished to hear.

For the most part, he seemed rather sad to her in those moments where he wasn't pumping himself up to be more than he truly was. Beneath that sadness though was a darkness. Anyone could feel it. No one's angry without cause. No one hates themselves for no reason.

And there was a reason. There was a cause. The things he suffered through as a child, the underside of the world he saw, were things that Mirajane had always done so well to shield Lisanna and Elfman from. She didn't have his same distaste for things because, in her mind, even though things were rough at times, they'd always turned out fine. She'd lost her home and parents and, for a long time, her own life, but in the end, she always had her siblings.

That was all she truly needed.

Things were changing though, rapidly, as they all grew. And though their love for each other would never fade, the Strauss siblings were beginning to find their own places in the world. And Lisanna's, as she was hoping, would be beside Bickslow. AT least for the time being.

After what he'd just told her, however, that time might come to an end sooner than expected…

"You use your own blood?" she asked with a frown as for some reason,t hat was the only question that came to her mind. "Bickslow?"

He was mid drag, but as he blew the smoke back through his mouth, he said, "It's the only way."

"Where did you learn blood magic?"

"Where do any of us learn anything?"

She swallowed heavily and he thought he'd finally done it. He'd finally creeped Lisanna out. She was finished with him. It had been a long time coming, after all.

Lisanna was getting to her feet then and he thought it was to run off, but instead, she only came to stand before him. Looking down at the seith, she only watched him for a moment before asking a simple question.

"Could you show me?"

That time his grin was dark and devious as he instinctively moved to push up his visor. It wasn't there though, of course, and he only rubbed at his forehead like an idiot.

"I thought," he beamed wickedly, flashing his guild marking as his tongue dangled from his mouth, "you'd never ask."

He needed to gather supplies first, he claimed, and headed off to his bedroom to look for them. Lisanna only moved to sit on the floor then, before the table, where each of the babies sat. When Bickslow returned, he had new little wooden bodies, paint brushes, bowls, and little containers of paint, all of which he sat before her on the coffee table beside the bodies of his babies.

"Let's," he said as he started to uncap the paint and pour it into the bowls, "get started."

"The basic concept was a lot like what Lisanna always assumed it was. He prepped the paint with the different colors, mixing some in certain bowls when needed, in order to create their signature designs. When they were finished though, he suddenly pulled a pocket knife from his pants and flicked the blade open.

She wanted to say something, Lisanna did, but she kept quiet as she watched him nick his thumb, rolling it across the sharp blade until it bled. Then he held it over the pink paint they'd created from mixing the red and white.

"They all have lips," he explained simply as she winced a bit, just from the thought. "Which are pink."

"But how?" she asked simply, with a frown.

"Does it work?" he questioned. "It's magic, Lisanna, it-"

"No, how does it… When your dolls break," she asked softly, "you just transfer their souls hover. How-"

"The blood gives me dominion over them for an amount of time," he told her simply. "Then, when the doll breaks, the spell continues to be cast for a short amount of time. That's why I never have them out of their bodies for longer than few hours. It's not as if they'd go anywhere though, if I didn't. They'd just follow me. Others couldn't see them though."

"Would they really though?" she asked which made him frown. She only continued though as she added, "Or are you binding them to you with your blood? And you're afraid if you don't use the blood, they might run off? If they get away from you?"

He'd never considered this and, cigarette now barely more than a butt dangling form his lips, he stayed silent. In his mind, his dolls stayed with him because they loved him. And he cared for them. The fact that his blood was restricting them had no bearing on this in any regard.

But to Lisanna, it definitely did.

"It's just part of it," he told her as he took to mixing the pink to the perfect shade. "The whole thing. They need me."

"He needs them," Freed sighed to Lisanna, once, as the pair watched him show off all the tricks he'd more than made them sit through before. "The dolls. They're a part of him."

"He loves them," Mirajane giggled late one night as she and her sister discussed their significant others. "And cares for them. About them. What's better than that?"

Lisanna had to question though how much was need and love and how much was obsession. Because for all of his assessments of the others, there was more to Bickslow as well. His dolls were definitely a part of the persona that he'd crafted and most would agree that the dolls were, at least, as beneficial to him as he was to them, but there remained the chance that the situation wasn't as two sided as all assumed.

Bickslow told her once about how he found the souls, when he was out lost, alone, and they comforted him, but sometimes…

Sometimes she felt like she wasn't getting the whole story from him.

But…

There he was, showing her a part of his magic that she had to imagine not many had seen. If he was being that open and that honest with her, could he really be hiding that much more?

Maybe. Maybe a lot. But, as he decided that evening after Lisanna had left and his dolls were in all new bodies, the jewels weren't going to be one of them. As he placed the full amount in the jar on the counter of his kitchen, he figured it was for the best anyways.

Not only did he really want another movie lacrima, but Lisanna was clearly more observant than he gave her credit for.

"There's something to her, babies," he told the dolls as he did go ahead and snag a few jewels from the jar. After all, he was low on smokes. "Just something to her."

* * *

 **This was a one-shot I started a long while back, but figured I'd go ahead and finish. It's probably from last summer, in fact, and just was begging to be released. Plus, Bickslow and Lisanna deserved a one-shot of their own.**


End file.
